Freeze, baby, freeze: Ice harvesters hot for cold

I'm a winter-loving fun seeker who doesn't do well on skis, snowboards or ice skates. But I delight in finding new experiences to share with lumbering, fellow polar bears.

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By DIANE W. STONEBACK

poconorecord.com

By DIANE W. STONEBACK

Posted Jan. 29, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By DIANE W. STONEBACK

Posted Jan. 29, 2013 at 12:01 AM

CHECK IT OUT

When ice harvesting time approaches, Bill Leonard measures the ice once a week.

The decision to go ahead with the harvest or cancel it will be made Feb. 9 or 10, based on the ice's thickness...

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CHECK IT OUT

When ice harvesting time approaches, Bill Leonard measures the ice once a week.

The decision to go ahead with the harvest or cancel it will be made Feb. 9 or 10, based on the ice's thickness and the week's weather forecast.

To find out if the harvest is a go, call 570-894-8205 and listen to the recorded message, or send an email to bdleonard@verizon.net to be added to the ice harvesters' mailing list.

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I'm a winter-loving fun seeker who doesn't do well on skis, snowboards or ice skates. But I delight in finding new experiences to share with lumbering, fellow polar bears.

My recommendation: Reserve Feb. 16 for a day on the ice at Millpond No. 1 in Tobyhanna.

Your day will depend on whether Tobyhanna's residents get their wish for a run of frigid weather that's cold enough to "grow" the ice in time for their ice harvest.

Although helping with Tobyhanna's ice harvest might pale to some of my wilder experiences, like sleeping in Quebec's ice hotel or flying down Eaglesmere's ice slide on a toboggan, it's still your ticket for an Arctic Express trip into living history.

Your time on the frozen mill pond's surface will deliver a frosty lesson in what our ancestors had to do for a steady ice supply, in the days before freezers could keep foods frozen forever (or until the power goes out).

Although earlier generations got wet and plenty cold while cutting the ice, they persevered it because the ice was needed to weather summer's heat. Without it, they wouldn't have had large ice blocks to keep foods cold in ice boxes (the forerunners of refrigerators), let alone iced tea and homemade ice cream for chilling out.

Tobyhanna's Bill Leonard directs operations on the mill pond, where spectators are welcome to help.

If conditions are right — and the ice is thick enough — he and a team of volunteers will begin marking off the ice for cutting by 9 a.m. He expects to finish harvesting 50 tons of ice, enough to fill the pond-side ice house, by 2 or 3 p.m.

Watching the ice harvesters cut the ice with checker-board precision and a 1919 power-driven saw is quite a sight. Ice "dust" flies out from the back of the whirling blade and coats the men pushing it.

"We run the power saw for 10 or 15 minutes every half hour, but then we shut it down. It cuts through two thirds of the ice, but then we use hand saws to cut the ice the rest of the way."

Ice blocks are floated through a canal to the ice house, where two work horses help get the heavy blocks, which weigh about 120 pounds, if they're 9 inches thick, into the ice house. The horse team also will pull an ice plow, if there's a layer of snow to clear from the pond's frozen surface.

Visitors who want to pitch in can wield one of the hand-powered ice saws, shovel ice debris from the canal or use an ice hook to guide blocks through the canal.

This year's harvest already had to be rescheduled for February when a mid-January thaw melted the possibility of an earlier date. The ice softened and was just 7 inches thick, Leonard reported.

It didn't happen at all in 2012, because the winter was so warm that the pond's ice never grew thicker than 4 inches.

This is the 20th year that Leonard's family, friends and volunteers have pitched in to re-create a historic ice harvest.

"Ideally, the ice should be 12 inches thick, but we can cut it if we've got at least an 8- or 9-inch layer," Leonard says. Other conditions have to be right, too.

No more hot spells. No warm, heavy rains. No heavy snows.

Snow acts as an insulator and slows more ice from forming, he explains, and adds, "On really cold nights, when the temperature's around zero, an inch of new ice can grow in a night."

Even if the ice harvest day is bright and sunny, dress as if you're headed for a day in the arctic. Otherwise, you begin feeling like the ice blocks being harvested, within minutes of standing on the ice. The only potential heat source you might find, before climbing back into the car and turning the heater to high, is a possible bonfire burning beside the pond.

The late Bill Leonard Sr. served as a "chunk" boy (culling imperfect ice blocks before they got to the ice house) during his youth and wanted people to know more about this once-booming industry in Monroe County that supplied New York City and Philadelphia residents with the ice.

He traveled widely to talk about the ice industry and spearheaded a plan to re-enact an ice harvest for Coolbaugh Township's 1994 bicentennial. He designed a small ice house (but large enough to store 50 tons of ice) that was built on the site of a former ice house that had stored 60,000 tons. He died before his dream could be achieved.

"With the help of the rest of the family, friends and volunteers, we finished all of the construction and did the bicentennial ice harvest in his memory. It was supposed to be done just once, but we've done it ever since. It gives us a good reason to get together and remember Dad," Leonard says.